Sensibility and the Writing Process

One of the things that we do not talk about when we talk about writing is the sound and scent and sensuality of it, the scratching and hammering and tapping, the pitter of pencils and the scribble and scrawl of pens, the quiet mumble of the electric typewriter like an old pharmacist humming, the infinitesimal skitter of forefingers on keyboards; and the curl and furl of paper, the worn and friendly feeling of pocket-notebooks, the shards and scraps on which we have started essays and stories and poems, trying to catch an angle of light or the faint sound of a child giggling in the next yard over or the way a falcon actually no kidding furrowed the air; and the dark moist smell of ink and the rough grain of dense paper and the faint scent of glue in the spines of old books; and the snap and flap as you fold a newspaper in half and then again, so that you can focus on the story above the fold.